C'est la Mort
by DreamInInk
Summary: The third trial has been completed, and Sam and Dean are at a loss; Sam's health is deteriorating more quickly than ever, and Cas has abandoned ship. Dean, unable to deal with his brother's illness on his own, calls in reinforcements- of the nerdy-redhead variety.
1. Heaven, Go Easy On Me

_I haven't written a Supernatural fic yet, but I literally have been addicted since Christmas and I think now's the time._

_Contains major Sam whumpage and plenty of protective Dean so you can get your rocks off._

* * *

Charlie is almost- almost- at a loss for words when her phone begins to vibrate and growl like a souped-up pimp-mobile. The LCD screen flashes thrice, three bright "DEAN WINCHESTER"s singeing her eyes. The previous night's convention had gotten a little wild, and she was back in her hotel suite sleeping it off.

Or at least she was.

Now she is picking up the phone.

"Hello?" Her perky tone depicts a Charlie that is definitely not currently accurate.

_"Uh, Charlie? It's Dean."_

"Yeah, I know," she says, then, realizing she needs to stay consistent with the happy, fully-awake Charlie she's portraying, adds, "caller ID and all. What's going on?"

_"You don't happen to be busy, do you?"_

That was a tricky question. While she did have another day left of the convention, she had planned to sleep through it (the rare D&D Ravenloft book she had been on the hunt for was nowhere to be found). So was she busy technically? No. But did she want to obligate herself to other things? Definitely not.

But it _is_ Dean.

"No, not at all. Why?"

_"I was uh, wondering if you could come on over and hang out with us? We're at the Men of Letters still, and, uh, jonesin' for some company."_

Okay. Suspicious. Dean may have his fair share of feely-feel moments, but he was almost _never_ the one to elicit them (that would be Sam). So Dean asking for company? Weird. Definitely weird.

"Are you okay? You sound off."

There was a long pause. _"Um, it's Sam." _His voice breaks, goes up at the end like he's asking a question. Charlie's stomach drops. _"We finished the trials, and... he's just not doing so well. And things are looking a little gloomy. And I need someone here, I guess. I mean, I need you."_

Charlie sits up in bed and curls in on herself, pressing her forehead to her knees. "Okay, yeah. I'm in Dallas right now, but I'll be there real soon okay? Give me a day, tops. And I'm bringing my arsenal. From what I've seen, you and Sam need your geek-speak updated."

Dean chuckles. _"Hey! I'd like to think we can keep the quips coming."_

"You're three centuries behind! These days, it's all about Dr Who. Game of Thrones. The Hunger Games. And Supernatural too, but hey, you-"

_"Charlie..." _Dean's voice was on-edge.

"Okay! Okay. We'll stick to the non-cult classics."

"_Those _all _sound like cult classics."_

"Yeah, well, we're in different cults."

There's an abbreviated laugh. _"So we'll see you tomorrow?"_

"Yes. Definitely. And I demand a full report on the trials, because- well, actually, can you just tell me what happened now? And why you didn't call me sooner?"

_"Look, it's a really long story, and it's a fairly recent development. I would have called you sooner but it's been a little... hectic. Anyway, you be careful on your way here alright?"_

"Of course. Don't go anywhere till I get there."

_"Alright. Oh, and Charlie?"_

"Yeah?"

_"Thanks."_

* * *

The I-35 corridor is one of the scariest highways Charlie has ever driven, but it takes her straight up to Wichita in only about six hours and from there it's easy going. The Men of Letters bunker is just as inconspicuously conspicuous as it was before, and she feels her car sort of matches the theme- obvious if it weren't for all the yellow fallen leaves surrounding it.

She knocks intricately on the door, even though they had never established a secret knock. She figures Dean will get it.

Sure enough, he's the one to pry the steel door open, clad in his typical attire and house shoes. He looks almost relieved as he draws her into a hug as warm as the sun, and she relishes every second of it. How many times has she met Dean, over all? Three? Surely she shouldn't love him this much.

As he pulls away, he quirks that dorky, lopsided grin. "Hey."

She smiles admonishingly back. "Hey. Are you going to invite me in?"

He shrugs happily and pulls the door farther open. "I wasn't planning on it, but if you insist."

She enters the common area and situates her night bag and other various totes on a table. Dean swaggers up next to her, sweeping a pile of candy wrappers off the table and onto a dirty plate, then heading towards the kitchen. "So what do you have in mind? Sam's asleep but-"

"No I'm not."

Leaning heavily against one of the corridor walls, a sallow looking man stands. Charlie is stunned for a minute. Yeah, it's Sam, but he is thinner and shakier and paler. His eyes seem darker, receded back into his skull. He has on a hoodie and flannel pants that seemed to drape off of him like a wire mannequin. And despite all of the darkness- all of the _illness,_ Sam cracks a grin at Charlie and she can't help but beam back.

For a flash of a second, she can see the charismatic and dangerous Sam she first met forever ago, when she was stealing files from big-mouths and receiving encouragement via Bluetooth headset in the form of Harry Potter references. And for a flash of a second, she thinks that maybe Dean had been a little over dramatic- maybe this isn't that bad.

She rushes at him and hugs him (which is hard, seeing as how he's enormous) and he sways a little in her grasp but she easily steadies him, then walks with him back to the tables and sits opposite. Dean senses the mood and takes a seat at the head chair.

"Alright, spill. Before we do anything I want full details on what I missed."

Dean and Sam exchange looks before Dean begins to speak. "Crowley captured Kevin and managed to get a hold of the angel tablet while we had our backs turned. Sam and I hunted down Metatron, who helped us get Kevin back, and while Kevin had been with Crowley, he deciphered the final trial. We had to cure a demon."

"Cure a demon? How is that even possible?"

Dean shoots Charlie a light glare, and she receeds meekly.

"Human blood," Sam says, clearing his throat. "Demon blood ingested by humans can prove to change them, so if demons ingested human blood..." he shrugged sheepishly.

"Wait, this demon drank your blood?" Charlie looks pointedly at Sam, who lowers his head and raises his arm, tugging the sleeve down to reveal a hearty bandage.

Dean looks somewhat proud and somewhat disgruntled. "The problem is, the Gates of Hell could still be wide open, for all we know. There wasn't any grand finale. We haven't seen Cas at all since he ditched us with the demon and ran off to heaven, and even if Crowley doesn't have it, the angel tablet is still out there. As much as I hate it, we've been sitting here with our thumbs up our asses for the past week trying to contact someone who can let us know the job is done."

"Cas left?"

"Yeah," they say in unison.

"Said he had something to take care of up in the cloud kingdom," finishes Dean.

"And the final trial was completed, but Sam, you're not..."

"Improving?" he provides dryly. "No."

"Well that doesn't make any sense."

"No," Dean replies. "No it doesn't."

Sam pales a little, raises a hand to his head, pinches the bridge of his nose. "Uh, what did I hear about a movie night?"

Charlie relaxes a little. The mystery of the trials and Cas she can't solve, but the introduction of epic sagas was just her category.

* * *

Dean has outfitted one of the spare rooms with a couch and coffee table, along with and awesome 86-inch TV. Charlie claims the center cushion with her snuggie and lays out her emergency DVD volumes on the coffee table. Sam and Dean come in, both holding popcorn and candy. Dean's even got a drink holder with two beers and a bottle of water in it. Sam lowers himself gracelessly into the right side of the couch, making it about one fourth of the way before plopping down. Dean sits to Charlie's left, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically.

"So what have we got?"

"Well. We have Doctor Who, but only series six- not a good introductory series. Also the Avengers, which is great but _long,_ then there's Game of Thrones but I'm not in the mood to get into that right now. I have the Hobbit, Deathly Hallows Part I & II, the Amazing Spider-Man-"

Sam laughs, a sort of baffled chuff. "You carry all of these with you on a regular basis?"

"Only to conventions that I know will be a bore. And you're just lucky I happened to be at one of them. Anyway, Spider-Man, Sherlock, season two of Merlin, the Hunger Games, Breaking Bad-"

"Okay back up," says Dean.

"Breaking Bad?"

"No, the other one. The- the- the Hunger Maims."

"The Hunger Games."

"Yeah, that sounds interesting."

Charlie looks back and forth between the two boys, and she's not quite sure if this will be appropriate or not. A movie about a girl forced to play a role in an overall evil scheme just didn't seem to play well in her head.

But Sam raises his eyebrows and a little wave forms over his right eye and _okay fine._

She slides the disk into the player.

Dean is tense with the forest scenes. Sam flinches at the fire. By the time the nightshade has come out, Sam has drifted off and Dean has excused himself to the bathroom.

Charlie feels as though it was a terrible idea to let them pick the movie.

* * *

After the movie Dean shows Charlie where she'll be sleeping and points out that she ought to be careful with the bed frame because "that is ma-hog-a-ny" and she feels a little better about the movie now that someone has joked about it. She's crossing the hallway into the bathroom when Dean comes out of the little movie theatre, his brother leaning against him and shivering fiercely. Their facing the opposite direction, so she just kind of stands there and watches them. Dean pulls Sam's arm over his own shoulder to help support him, and Sam's knees all but give out as they begin moving towards their quarters. She can hardly hear it, but Dean is mumbling about distances and how they had made it farther than this with a lot less and she feels a little like puking because _they really had_, and still this illness was so debilitating.

And she also feels sick because at one point that night she had thought that maybe Dean had been exaggerating over the phone but now she can see that he was not.

And now she can see that he wasn't exaggerating; rather, he was trivializing it.

Because in the middle of the hallway, held up only by his brother, Sam starts vomiting blood on the brown-stained concrete floors.

* * *

_So hopefully that wasn't too torturously bad or whatever. I'm new to writing the characters, but I had fun. I'll probably follow this up later (it's finals week and I am procrastinating). Anyway, ignore any inconsistencies or plot holes or what have you. I am a lamo and I did not do my research. I also disclaim all knowledge of the shows Breaking Bad, Dr Who, Game of Thrones, and Merlin. I did not pursue those further for a reason. _

_Anywho, please leave feedback as to whether I did well or not. And also, if you see any tense inconsistencies, please let me know. I wrote this late at night and I'm pretty sure I got them all but present tense is a bitch and I am not attentive to detail._

_Val bene,_

_-K_


	2. Luck Now

Dean lowers his brother slowly, quietly, to the floor, guiding him to lean against the wall, and, catching Charlie in the corner of his eye, says calmly, "Get a trash can."

Charlie does as she is asked, depositing her toiletry bag on the small table in her room and slipping the little waste basket out from under it to take to Dean. She pauses in the doorway, squeezes her eyes shut, _breathes_. She has to maintain a calm, like Dean. She has to stay cool. Like Dean.

_Like Dean. Like Dean. Like Dean._

She reenters the hallway to find Dean holding Sam up, trying to push his hair away from the bloodied bile. His shirt is already a loss- jeans, too. Sam shudders as another bout overtakes him, and blood bubbles from his sealed lips. He screws his eyes shut for a moment, as if trying to control it, to contain it, but then he moans and his lips part and his body spasms and so much blood comes out that Charlie is momentarily frozen in her path, because no one even _has_ that much blood, and it seems to spill forth forever, Sam gasping and coughing and moaning. Charlie has always had a strong stomach but she suddenly feels like maybe she might need the bucket, too.

Dean only looks from Sam when Charlie hands him the trash can, but even in that split second Charlie is able to identify the sheer terror in his eyes. When he looks to her, it's as though all the walls come down- just for a second- and his eyes grow wide, and his mouth opens like he's about to say something but all that comes out is a little strangle breath.

Then he looks back to Sam, and his face steels. He holds the bucket beneath Sam's chin and Sam nearly collapses into it. His hand comes up and latches to Dean's shirt, holding on for dear life. Charlie can see his hand shake. Dean mumbles things like "let it out" and "it'll be okay" and "you're doing good" alternatively as Sam faces another round of nausea.

Dean presses his lips into a thin line, then turns to Charlie. "Can you do me a favor?"

Charlie nods mutely.

"A bottle of water. And in my desk drawer, there's a thermometer. Can you get that?"

Another nod.

Dean smiles as best he can.

Sam's eyes roll up to meet her for a second and he grimaces. "S-s-sorry."

Shaking her head is the best response Charlie can give.

* * *

After grabbing the water from the kitchen, Charlie finds herself wandering the halls of the lair, trying to find Dean's room. It hadn't occurred to her that the place would be so big, but when she recalls the exterior, okay, she shouldn't be surprised.

Finally, after a lot of snooping around, she finds what she assumes to be Dean's room. Guns decorate the walls, and there are a few family pictures scattered about. It honestly could've been Sam or Dean's room. The only thing that makes her think it's the latter is the complete lack of books. She doesn't think that Sam would pass up the chance to create his own miniature library.

She checks the first drawer in the desk and nope, no thermometer. Just a stack of journals. The second drawer is a dud too. Finally, the third drawer is the winner, yielding a thermometer, and- _bonus-_- a cold compress. She takes both and prepares herself for the voyage that is finding her way back to the boys.

Which turns out not as hard as she thought it would be- the boys are only one hall over. Sam seems to be finished vomiting, and now he's leaning against Dean (_Dean is practically cradling Sam)_, who is rubbing his back and telling him to hang on until he can get him to bed. "Then you can sleep, okay?"

Charlie hands off the water bottle and thermometer, but keeps the cold compress in her hands, needing something to fiddle with. She crouches nervously just behind Dean; close enough to see and hear, but far enough to not intrude.

Dean uncaps the water bottle and presses it to Sam's lips, silently trying to coax him to drink. Sam whimpers as a violent shiver runs through him, but his mouth remains shut. "Come on, Sammy, just a little sip, _please._" The whole of the sentence seems to be innocent but the final word intones the desperation Dean is trying so hard to conceal.

Sam closed his eyes and opened his mouth, at first seeming soothed by the cool liquid, but then his eyes open wide and he spits out the water along with blood and bile. Dean lurches forward for the trash can again, then holds it beneath Sam's mouth as he resumes the process of purging all the contents of his stomach and a little extra, too. Once the heaving stops, Sam is left panting, every exhalation accompanied with the softest moan. Dean closes his eyes and breathes deeply through his nose, and Charlie can't help but think he's more upset about the situation than Sam is.

Dean cradles Sam's head against his chest and fumbles his hair out of the way, fingers running across his forehead. "Damn," he mumbles. "Sammy, open up your mouth for me. I need to take your temperature."

Sam complies and Dean puts the thermometer in his mouth. In those moments when Sam closes his eyes and rests his head in Dean's hands, against Dean's chest, and Dean is stroking Sam's hair and rubbing his back, Charlie is a little overwhelmed. She can't recall the last time someone touched her like that. There is no recollection of such a bewilderingly soft embrace. Sure, hugging Dean felt like hugging the sun, but at that moment Sam probably felt like he was being cradled by the moon, and if that analogy didn't spell out her compatibility ( _or lack thereof) _then she didn't know what did.

* * *

Sam's temperature is 102.3. Dean says he's had worse. He hoists Sam up and carries him to his room, bridal style (_or dead-man style,_ she thinks morbidly), and Charlie takes this as her cue to get ready for bed. And she does begin to- retrieving her toiletries from her room and pacing into the bathroom- until she realizes that she still has the cold compress and hey, Sam could probably use this.

So she traces her way back to the Dean's room, and sure enough, the next room over, there's a soft glow coming from the crack in the door. She starts to walk in until she sees what's happening- and from her vantage point, she has the perfect view.

Sam is in the bed, propped up by a few pillows. His breathing is ragged, shallow. Dean sits in a chair right next to the bed, and the way he's turned, she can see a little bit of his face, but mostly his back. Sam's lips are moving but she can't really hear what he's saying, only Dean's responses:

"No, of course I'm not going to leave."

"Look, we can't afford to think like that. I know it's been tough, but we've still got lot's of loose ends to tie up. I need a geek around here to research for me."

"Well Charlie's no you."

"Psh, an iPad doesn't make up for 30 years of training."

"Don't be stupid, you've practically been training since you were born."

"Whatever. We're not arguing about this now."

Sam says something and Dean reaches up and pushes Sam's hair back, his hand lingering a little longer on his head than it needed to.

"I know, God, I know. I'm so sorry, Sam."

"That's not funny, you ass."

Sam grins faintly and his hand fumbles for Dean's. Dean is a quick catch though. Sam's lips move more, but even without being able to hear what's said, Charlie can tell it was unintelligible.

"Stop talking and get some sleep, okay? God knows you need all the beauty rest you can get."

And, like always, Sam follows his big brother's orders without hesitation.

* * *

_Wowowowowoowowowowowoowow. Thank you so much for all of the reviews and favorites and follows. Just wow. My email was flooded for a little bit._

_I hope this chapter isn't a failure- it was hard to write. Also, please excuse any of the "-" things. I don't currently have Word so I don't get the fancy long lines. Zenwriter is a bitch._

_Anyway, I haven't really decided where I want to go with the next chapter. You should leave a suggestion. And please let me know if you see any errors._

**_If you are looking for something else to do while procrastinating studying for finals (shut up I know you are) you should review my story. It'll take five minutes. It's the perfect plan._**

_Val bene,_

_-K_


End file.
